Avira and IAG

The last few days I've been speaking to a reseller who purchased Avira AntiVir Professional Anti Virus software from e92plus.

They were having issues connecting their PC to an IAG solution! For some reason, since the AV change from McAfee to Avira, they were unable to access an IAG solution. The IAG solution was not deployed or implemented by e92plus, so it was just fortunate that I work with both products.

My initial reaction to the description of the problem, was that the IAG solution was not up to date, and lacked IAG SP2, which would give WMI recognition which works with all versions of Avira. Prior to SP2, IAG would only recognise Avira V6 or V7. The reseller checked with the IAG supplier and it turns out that SP2 is already installed.

My colleague tried to access the site from an XP machine running Avira 8, and was able to access it. The reseller had installed the latest version of Avira Professional which is version 9, and the assumption was that was the problem. I tried to access the site from an Vista machine running Avira 9, and again I was able to access the site!

With a bit more digging, it turns out that the endpoints must meet three criteria before they are able to login.

1. Must have an anti-virus application running
2. Must have a software firewall running
3. Must have the IAG components installed and running

So at e92plus we also use an IAG appliance, which would explain why we were able to access the site. This would mean that our machines meet the above requirements as all these components were installed.

Checking with the reseller, we highlighted that without the IAG components installed, it would not work. These components will require adminsitrative rights to install. Despite their frustration, I was not able to help from an IAG perspective, but pointed them in the right direction, as the offline installation package may be required due to a corrupted installation, or not having adminstrative rights when the initial installation was run.

They were able to access the site from both Vista and XP machines with Avira version 9, as well as e92plus proving that we were able to access from Vista and XP machines with both Avira version 8 and 9.

The issue that the reseller now has is that on site, it will not work with their client's machines, and the finger was pointed at Avira.

I can catergorically say, I don't believe the issue to lie with Avira, as we were able to prove from a number of machines that it works. Despite this, it was requested that we escalate this with Avira, and they also see no issue with their product!!

Although I understand our resellers frustration, the troubleshooting needs to be with the IAG side or the client installation, rather than the AV! The troubleshooting should start with the log files from the IAG server, but as the supplier of the IAG solution seems reluctant to help our reseller, so they are stuck between a rock and hard place!!